Taxpayers fight back, challenge assessments

The New York Times has an interesting story today about a rising wave of taxpayers who are fighting their property assessments. The reporting is largely out of Westchester County.

Here’s a piece:

The record-setting number of tax grievances, which nearly quintupled from 2008 to 2010, are adding fiscal pressure to communities already throttled by economic losses and cuts in state aid.

Towns are being forced to refund millions of dollars to homeowners who show they have been overcharged. Some, like New Rochelle, have been forced to increase tax rates to make up for the erosion of assessed property values. Others, like Greenburgh, are also exploring costly townwide revaluations — a move that many towns have not made in a half-century or more.

Westchester has company, too. With property values plummeting in recent years, local governments across the country have been besieged by homeowners questioning their assessments.

6 Responses

Troy is under going a city wide re-assessment, and I will be challenging it if the valuation of my home is not adjusted downward. I just purchased my home for about 60,000 less than the previous assessed value….that works out to around 2 grand less annually in taxes…

The grand prize goes to AMD for its multiple assessment challenges on a project that hasn’t been completed. Between local tax relief, and the largesse courtesy of Joe Bruno, that company is looking at more than $2 billion (THAT’S WITH A “B”) in public funding, which translates to more than $1 million per “new job” at the site. Whatever happened to the concept of “safe sex”??

As for assessment challenges/reassessments, remember it is a zero sum game. Troy, for example, needs $X to operate. It doesn’t matter if the assessment goes up or down, if your house is accurately assessed v. your neighbors your taxes won’t change at all.